My Hypothyroidism Journey

[Lucas]

Hello.
I am male, 37 years old. I from Brazil.
I will start here to share my journey to health. Why here? I don’t follow a Peat diet, but I like his writings and the information that I get on this forum.
I think that I have hypothyroidism, in truth, since I was a kid I have fatigue. My symptoms are:
- Low body temperature (35.6 C at wake up and 35.9 to 36.1 along the day).
- Extreme fatigue
- Brain fog
- Some memory loss
- Hair loss
- Constipation
- Low stomach acid
- Milk and Gluten intolerance
- Weak and pain on the legs (like it is rusty)
- Depression
I am 5’9’’, 75 kg, I am not fat, but had a puffy face, dark circles under yes, double chin, also had a belly fat.
I do strength training, and suffer on it whit my lack of energy and my weak legs (I bench press more than I squat).
For breakfast I eat yogurt whit potato starch and omelet whit 3 eggs.
Since my son have autism and eats the same every day for lunch is rice whit lentils and beef.
I snack a little chocolate or an apple.
For dinner is one more omelet whit 3 eggs and boiled potato.
I had periodic limb movement disorder when I sleep. So I take Gabapentin.
This disorder makes my sleep not refreshing. Whit 300 mg Gabapentin my sleep is still not refreshing, but I can have a fatigued life. If I don’t take Gabapentin, I just don’t live the next day, it is just like I had no sleep.
Maybe my low body temperature is from this medication? Maybe hypothyroidism causes periodic limb movement disorder?
Blood tests are ok. I had no Hashimoto, TSH around 2-3, free T4 on range. Never had my free T3 tested.
Vitamin D, Iron, B12, Folate, Magnesium are all ok.
So, I started on my own a NDT treatment. Started whit 1 grain of T.R Tman from Pimpom Products (1/2 at wake up, ½ after lunch). My leg pain disappears, have energy, but it is still not enough and I can’t increase the dose because in reality it is only 60 tablets because I buyed the Thiroyd and T. R man comes as a promotion. I tried Thiroyd and gets more fatigue!! So if I increase the dose I will end my T.R Tman tablets!! So sad. I am waiting from more T.R to comes, but in Brazil is 10 weeks to arrive from Tayland.
Also, whit 1 grain, my temperature don’t change, still very low.

So, I will start my journey here to a normal life.

 

[tara]

Lucas

Glad the NDT has helped.

TSH 2-3 is considered normal by most drs, but Peat has said he has seldom/never (?) met a healthy person with TSH above 2, and suggests below 1 is better.

Have you had a go at entering your typical day's diet into a tool like cronometer, so you can see if you are short on anything in particular? My guess is you may be a bit short on some minerals - possibly magnesium, potassium, calcium. Peat suggests getting more calcium than phosphorus, preferably about 1.5:1 ratio of Ca:Ph. Milk is a good source of calcium - if it agrees with you, you could try more of it. Fruit and juice can be good for potassium and magnesium, and well as some useful fruit sugars. It is common in hypothyroid states to have difficulty retaining some of the minerals, including magnesium. Salt (NaCl) can sometimes help with this.

Have you tried loading up with some sugars from milk or juice and sth salty before bed? Are you getting out into daylight regularly? Keeping really warm in bed? Having a snack by the bed to help against night-time fasting stress (I've had to do this a lot)?

Good luck

 

[Lucas]

Thanks’ Tara.
I put my diet on cronometer and get deficiency in VIT A: 65 %, VIT K: 16% and VIT E: 36 %. Iron comes at 467 %, PHOSPHORUS: 398 % and CALCIUM: 116 %.
Today I did strength training and my legs are getting weak, not stronger. The rusty effect is very hard.
The NDT (T.R Tman) only worked for 3 days, after I get fatigued again, whit brain fog. Only positive is that I had now a peaceful of mind, only fatigued.
The problem is that the other NDT that I get, Thiroyd, give me fatigue and brain fog, so I can’t increase the dose of the T. R since I will get without it.

 

[tara]

Liver is good for vitamin A.
Milk is good fro increasing calcium - shoot for 1200 - 2000mg, and more than phosphorus.
Lots of people here supplement vit E and vit K.
Many here replace some meat with milk and/or gelatine partly to reduce iron, partly to improve amino acid ratios, partly to improve Ca:Ph ratio (milk, not gelatine for this one). And many drink coffee or coke with meat to reduce iron absorption, because too much iron can contribute to premature aging and various diseases, if you don't need extra because you are really in deficiency.
Are you getting in a good 3000 cals a day? Around 100 g protein?

 

[Lucas]

Thank’s Tara.
Yes, around 3.000 calories and 100 g protein.
What concern me is 2 points now:
1. My rusty and weak legs. Can this be a symptom of hypothyroidism? Magnesium deficiency?
2. The drug Gabapentin. I take Gabapentin to sleep because of my restless leg when sleeping. Gabapentin depletes a lot of nutrients from the body, but without it I can sleep. I tried to reduce the dose from 300 mg to 250 mg but this doesn’t works. I hope that the restless legs improves whit NDT.

 

[tara]

What do you mean by rusty legs? Restless legs?
I don't know anything about gabapentin.
Magnesium deficiency is said to be common, and could be involved in restless legs. Being hypothyroid can make it harder to maintain magnesium levels. Many of us supplement it. There is a discussion on various forms of Mg for supplementation in this thread, and probably others. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5207

 

[sweetpeat]

Hi Lucas,

You might try splitting your thyroid dosage into smaller pieces, like say, fourths instead of halfs. NDT contains both t4 and t3, and sometimes it helps to spread out the t3 into smaller doses. Taking too much t3 at once can cause it to be inactivated. By spreading it out into smaller doses, you might get a stronger reaction even though it’s the same over-all amount (I hope that makes sense). Anyway, this has worked for me and some others. I figured I would mention it since it’s not a hard thing to try. Good luck!

 

[Lucas]

Hello.
Rusty legs:
For example: contract your biceps. It comes easy, don’t you? There no resistance.
But, if I contract my legs, I feel resistance, like an internal resistance on my legs. They also fell heavy when I walk, like all my body weight is on it.
So, in the gym, when I do strength training my legs respond by being weaker than my upper body. Also, when I get standing for like 15 min my knees becomes sore.
I will extend my NDT dose and see what happens.
Thanks’ for the help.

 

[Lucas]

Hello.
Did some experiments:
1. Take 15 capsules of 650 mg betaine HCL before my breakfast (so, 9750mg total), and no burning sensation, this show how heavy is my low stomach acid.
2. I am taking 220 mg of caffeine in the morning of the days I weight train. Even taking it at 8 am, I am getting insomnia on these days. Also, I feel hot on these days, the caffeine are increasing my temperature. I take it just after my breakfast. I get a little anxious and agitated, but is better than fatigued.

 

[aquaman]

For breakfast I eat yogurt whit potato starch and omelet whit 3 eggs.
Since my son have autism and eats the same every day for lunch is rice whit lentils and beef.
I snack a little chocolate or an apple.
For dinner is one more omelet whit 3 eggs and boiled potato.

Can you try increasing your fruit sugars to say 150grams per day? This should also help with the strength training.

Being in Brazil you can probably buy local, ripe, good tropical fruit. Have some with every meal.

And since you're suffering from inflammation issues (knees etc), then some gelatin to balance this out could be good. Oxtail soup etc.

 

[Lucas]

Thanks’.
Here where I live I have easy access to orange and banana (these 2 fruits I digest easily).
I will add organic gelatin on my diet.
I begin to eat to carrots.

 

[Lucas]

Hello.
Did a blood test and get some results:
Prolactin: 41,09 ng/ml Ref: 2,10 - 17,70
TSH: 0,015 uui/ml Ref: 0,40 - 4,30
Free T3: 0,80 ng/dl Ref: 0,20 - 0,40
Serum Iron: 110 ug/dl Ref: 65 – 175
Ferritin: 313 ng/ml Ref: 22 - 322
Progesterone: 0,44 ng/ml Ref: no reference for men
Antithyroglobulin antibody : < 30 ui/ml Ref: < 60 ui/ml
So, I have high iron levels, high prolactin. This explains why I have infertility (prolactin). The high iron is a marker for inflammation?
How can I have so low TSH and high t3 (hyperthyroid??) if I have hypo symptoms, my body temperature is 36 c at wake up and 36.4 mid day and I have fatigue and brain fog all day???
I am taking 4 grains of NDT (TR. Tman).
Sorry, don’t take my tsh before NDT treatment , but in 2010 it was never more than 3.
Thank you very much.
More tests will come.

 

[tara]

Hi Lucas, I'm not expert on this, but this is the impression I have. If others know better how this works, I hope they'll chime in. I think sometimes when people supplement thyroid to increase metabolism beyond what the body judges it has the resources to sustain, it has some ways of defending itself. One of these ways is to increase the conversion of T4 to reverse T3. I think maybe it is possible to get to a state of High rrT3 and high T3 and low TSH. I can't remember if Peat has written about this, and what to do about it. I think some people have tried addressing it by using T3 only or higher T3:T4 ratio for a while to try to clear some of the rT3.
Don't suppose you got rT3 tested? I don't think it is part of the standard test.

 

[Lucas]

Thank's Tara. No, no rT3 test.

 

[Lucas]

More results:
Total Testosterone : 790 ng/dl Ref: 241 - 827 ng/dl
SHBG: 88,1 nmol/L
Free Testosterone: 8,67 ng/dl
Bioavailable Testosterone: 203,21 ng/dl
Vit D: 78,4 ng/ml
Cortisol Basal : 18,6 ug/dl Ref: 4,0 – 22,00 ug/dl
Transferrin : 196 mg/dl Ref: 215-365 mg/dl
Something is wrong:
How can I have high prolactin whit low tsh?
How can I have high prolactin and a normal testosterone ?
Transferrin is low, but Serum Iron and Ferritin are high. Is this ok?
Also, I had low blood pressure. It is so low that I faint on this blood test. Is possible to be hypothyroid and have a low blood pressure?
When I started Desiccated Thyroid whit half a grain I fell amazing for only 2 days, then after only get worse. Can this be a case of adrenal fatigue?
To add more information, I am thin.

Also, today I dont take more NDT. Will began to take b6 and mucuna prueirins to lower prolactin

 

[Amazoniac]

First I want to warn that I'm biased. But I rather do that than give my opinion on other aspects that I have no clue.

You immune system seems impaired. Low low body temp, Vitamin A, low stomach acid, low transferrin with high iron. Cron o meter measures should be amplified by 10x, most of their data rely on nutrients that are not bioavailable, they assume that you absorb all of the ingested nutrient, etc.
The feeling in your leg is in the joint or in the muscles around?
What do you think would happen if you dropped the medication for a while?
What about hyperthyroidism? Have you tested for estrogen?

I don't know where you live, but it's hard to find organ meats that are reliable in here. From where exactly?
And what do you mean by potato starch in your breakfast? Raw isolated starch? Everyday?

 

[tara]

I'm not strong on interpreting labs, but a couple of thoughts:

Something is wrong:
How can I have high prolactin whit low tsh?
How can I have high prolactin and a normal testosterone ?

Have you tried getting in more calcium? If you can't get at least 1200mg from milk etc, then you can supplement powdered clean eggshells or oystershells.

Also, I had low blood pressure. It is so low that I faint on this blood test. Is possible to be hypothyroid and have a low blood pressure?

I think so.

 

[Amazoniac]

I would do what tara suggested but before taking any extra mineral, work on optimizing fat-soluble vitamins. There seems to be a lot of disproportion with your vit D, compared to vitamins A and K2.

So you fainted during the test. It could have influenced a lot of the measurements..

 

[Lucas]

Hello.
My serotonin results come very high:
367,4 ng/ml Ref: 30 – 200 ng/ml
Gabapentin can increase serotonin?
Also, whit my high Ferritin and low transferrin, I can have hemochromatosis (iron overload).
I will investigate whit a doctor.

 

[Mittir]

I have not seen you posting total cholesterol. I have seen male on statin with
low total cholesterol 130-140, having high prolactin.

RP mentioned that TSH and prolactin tend to increase together. One possibility is that
high TSH causes prolactin to get high when there is no other reason for prolactin to be high.
In that case lowering TSH should lower prolactin. If you have condition that independently
increases prolactin then lowering TSH will not solve the problem. It is also possible that
prolactin increased due to hypothyroidism over a long period of time and it will take some
time to lower the prolactin by correcting thyroid.

Estrogen is associated with high prolactin and progesterone knocks out estrogen.
Good thyroid function, cholesterol and vitamin A are needed for progesterone production.
Generally most stress hormones moves in group, if estrogen goes up many other stress hormones
like cortisol, serotonin, prolactin etc goes up. Serotonin also increases prolactin. I see all these
stress hormones being inter-connected. Thyroid often is the main balancing hormone but
you need to do other things to solve the whole problem.

Your calcium to phosphorus ratio looks bit off. Have you measured your PTH?
I think keeping PTH in check is very important.